Cardinal Robert Sarah delivered a forceful homily on Saturday, exhorting the faithful to follow the example of St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, by loving and adoring the Lord above all things in a world that rejects God and has a false view of religion.

At a solemn Mass marking the 400th anniversary of the apparition of St. Anne in Sainte-Anne-d’Auray in Brittany, northwest France, Cardinal Sarah recalled how St. Anne appeared to Yvon Nicolazic, telling him that she wanted a chapel — originally constructed in her name a millennium earlier but that had since fallen into ruin — to be rebuilt. The Catholic Church celebrates the memorial of Sts. Anne and Joachim July 26. 

Drawing lessons from that miraculous event, the prefect emeritus of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments preached that God wanted that place to be reserved as sacred, a place where he would be worshipped and honored and “to tell us that God comes first.” 

As God created mankind by an act of “gratuitous love,” which was seen most clearly in him saving mankind through the cross, so it is a matter of justice that those who are his creatures and his children honor him, “especially in your societies, which tend to regard God as a useless dead thing of no interest,” he said, according to a translation and video posted by Catholic Conclave.

“Too often in the West, religion is presented as an activity at the service of human well-being,” the Guinean cardinal continued. “Religion is equated with humanitarian action, acts of charity, welcoming migrants and the homeless, promoting universal brotherhood and world peace. Spirituality would be a form of personal development, there to bring a little relief to modern man, tending towards his usual political and economic activities.”   

“While these issues are important,” Cardinal Sarah added, “this view of religion is wrong. Religion is not about food or humanitarian action. In the desert, it was the first temptation that Jesus rejected.” 

Jesus, he said, “makes us understand that even if everyone had enough to eat, even if prosperity extended to everyone, humanity would not be redeemed.” In fact, he added, it is “precisely in the countries of ease, wealth and abundance” that man “destroys himself, self-destructs, because he forgets God and thinks only of his wealth and his earthly well-being.”

When mankind forgets God and does not honor, worship and serve him, “we will end up worshipping ourselves,” he warned. 

Reject Barbaric, Inhuman Laws

Turning to France, Cardinal Sarah said God chose the country to be “like holy ground” reserved for him, and he implored its citizens not to “profane France with your barbaric and inhuman laws that take death when God wants life” — an implicit reference to recent French legislation that included becoming the first country to include the right to abortion in its constitution last year.

The cardinal reiterated the importance of Eucharistic adoration, which he said is the “highest expression of our gratitude to God,” adding that to adore Christ means setting “ourselves apart in silence.” 

Sacred places, he said, must not be flooded with noise. Churches, he stressed, are God’s houses, reserved exclusively for him and “not theaters” or places for “concerts, cultural activities or entertainment.” 

“We enter with respect and veneration, properly dressed, because we tremble before the greatness of God,” he said. “We don’t tremble with fear, but with respect, support and admiration.” 

He explained that sacred places do not belong to us but to God, as do sacred songs and the liturgy. “The purpose of the liturgy is the glory of God and the sanctification of the faithful,” and he stressed the importance of sacred music in “facilitating active and fully conscious participation” in the sacred celebration of the Christian mysteries. “The liturgy is not a human spectacle,” he said, but a “timid response to the glory of God that precedes us. This is why it is imbued throughout with beauty nobility and sacredness.” 

Returning to the apparition of St. Anne and her exhortation to rebuild the church in her name, Cardinal Sarah said that “this is what God wants today,” and he stressed that this rebuilding must begin in each person’s soul.

Do not profane the sacred place of your baptised soul by “stealing God’s first place” and giving it over instead to “disordered passions and the spirit of the world,” Cardinal Sarah said. 

“It’s time to expel the idols of money and the screens of easy, vulgar seduction. God wants your heart. God wants your soul,” he said. “It is time to rebuild the ‘church of our soul,’” the cardinal affirmed, to confess one’s sins in this “favorable time,” and to undertake daily and intense silent prayer. Only in this way can God speak to a person, convert them, and bring them back to himself, he said.

By contrast, the cardinal warned that, if a person profanes the inner life of his soul “by a life dominated by sin and worldly entertainment, you risk missing out on your life” and “never really being yourself.” 

“My beloved brothers and sisters, let us not rob God of the sacred sanctuary of our soul,” Cardinal Sarah said. 

Suffering Example of St. Anne

He concluded his homily by recalling the example of St. Anne and how she suffered in not having Mary until her advanced age. The cardinal spoke of the many men and women who suffer from not having children and parents who are filled with anguish and concern for their sick children or for offspring who have abandoned the faith and ask themselves why they must suffer in this way. 

Their response, he said, should be that of St. Anne: not in rebellion against God but turning to him in adoration. “Our only response to the mystery of evil is silent adoration,” he said. “Yes, evil is incomprehensible, but we know from faith that adoring trust in God is stronger than the absurdity of evil.”

“Faith in God and the worship of God are the only remedies that can guarantee mankind a solid and lasting peace,” Cardinal Sarah said. “Adoration of God will never let us down.” 

Saint Anne’s patient and silent adoration, he continued, “enabled Mary to be born, the mother of the Savior, the most beautiful, the purest, the holiest of all creatures. All of you whose hearts bear suffering and pain, your hope is trust in God. As the night grows dark, your adoration will bear fruit in hope.”

He also encouraged priests, pressured by so many duties because there are so few, to make time for adoration. 

“Confident adoration pierces the cloak, the lead of evil,” he said. “It overturns the weight of despair.” And he stressed that the ability to adore God and to love him with all our heart, soul and strength is the “one grace that will never be taken away.” 

“When everything sometimes seems dark, we can always say, with our beloved Pope Leo XIV, that evil will not prevail,” the cardinal said in closing. “God, our God, is infinitely good, infinitely beautiful, infinitely great.” 

“Today, with St. Anne, in this blessed place chosen by God, let this cry of love rise up in each of our hearts: ‘Come, let us adore the Lord; come, let us adore him. Let us bow down before him; let us bend our knees before the Lord our Creator, for he is our God. Amen.’”